In sacraments--His dread behests; In Providence; in granted prayer; Before the time He manifests His glory, far as man may bear. He shines not from a vault of gloom; The horizon vast His splendour paints: Both heaven and earth His beams illume; His light is glorious in His saints. {47} He shines upon His Church--that Moon Who, in the watches of the night, Transmits to man the entrusted boon; A sister orb of sacred light. And thou, pure mirror of His grace!-- As sun reflected in a sea-- So, Mary, feeblest eyes the face Of Him thou lovest discern in thee. {48} _Munera._ VII. Not for herself does Mary hold Among the saints that queenly throne, Her seat predestined from of old; But for the brethren of her Son. Pure thoughts that make to God their quest, With her find footing o'er the clouds; Like those sea-crossing birds that rest A moment on the sighing shrouds. In her our hearts, no longer nursed On dust, for spiritual beauty yearn; From her our instincts, as at first, An upward gravitation learn. Her distance makes her not remote: For in true love's supernal sphere No more round self the affections float-- More near to God, to man more near. In her, the weary warfare past, The port attained, the exile o'er, We see the Church's barque at last Close-anchored on the eternal shore! {49} _Predestinata._ VIII. Eternal Beauty, ere the spheres Had rolled from out the gulfs of night, Sparkled, through all the unnumbered years, Before the Eternal Father's sight. Like objects seen by Man in dream, Or landscape glassed on morning mist, Before His eyes it hung--a gleam Flashed from the eternal Thought of Christ. It stood the Archetype sublime Of that fair world of finite things Which, in the bands of Space and Time, Creation's glittering verge enrings. Star-like within the depths serene Of that still vision, Mary, thou With Him, thy Son, of God wert seen Millenniums ere the lucid brow {50} Of Eye o'er Eden founts had bent,-- Millenniums ere that second Fair With dust the hopes of man had blent, And stained the brightness once so fair. Elect of Creatures! Man in thee Beholds that primal Beauty yet,-- Sees all that Man was formed to be,-- Sees all that Man can ne'er forget! {51} IX. Three worlds there are:--the first of Sense-- That sensuous earth which round us lies; The next of Faith's Intelligence; The third of Glory, in the skies. The first is palpable, but base; The second heavenly, but obscure; The third is star-like in the face-- But ah! remote that world as pure! Yet, glancing through our misty clime, Some sparkles from that loftier sphere Make way to earth;--then most what time The annual spring-flowers re-appear.